Category Archives: Ancient Texts

He (Enki) made broad understanding perfect in him (Adapa), To disclose the design of the land.

To him he gave wisdom, but did not give eternal life. At that time, in those years, he was a sage, son of Eridu.

Enki created him as a protecting spirit among mankind.

A sage – nobody rejects his word – Clever, extra-wise, he was one of the Anunnaki, Holy, pure of hands, the pashishu-priest who always tends the rites.

He does baking with the bakers of Eridu, He does the food and water of Eridu every day, Sets up the offerings table with his pure hands, Without him no offerings table is cleared away.

He takes the boat out and does the fishing for Eridu.

At that time Adapa, the son of Eridu, When he had got the leader Enki out of bed, Used to ‘feed’ the bolt of Eridu every day.

At the holy Kar-usakar he embarked in a sailing-boat And without a rudder his boat would drift, Without a steering-pole he would take his boat out into the broad sea.

South Wind Send him to live in the fishes’ home.

“South Wind, though you send your brothers against me, However many there are, I shall break your wing!”

No sooner had he uttered these words than South Wind’s wing was broken; For seven days South Wind did not blow towards the land.

An called out to his vizier Ilabrat, “Why hasn’t the south wind blown towards the land for seven days” His vizier Ilabrat answered him, “My lord, Adapa, the son of Enki has broken South Wind’s wing.”

When An heard this word, He cried “Heaven help him!”, rose up from his throne. “Send for him to be brought here!”

Enki, aware of Heaven’s ways, touched him And made him wear his hair unkempt, Clothed him in mourning garb, Gave him instructions, “Adapa, you are to go before king An.

You will go up to Heaven, And when you go up to Heaven, When you approach the gate of An, Dumuzi and Gizzida will be standing in the Gate of An, Will see you, will keep asking you questions, “Young man, on whose behalf do you wear mourning garb?” You must answer: “Two gods have vanished from our country, And that is why I am behaving like this.” They will ask: “Who are the two gods that have vanished from the countryside?” You will answer: “They are Dumuzi and Gizzida.” “They will look at each other and laugh a lot, Will speak a word in your favor to Anu, Will present you to An in a good mood.

When you stand before An They will hold out for you bread of death, so you must not eat.

They will hold out for you water of death, so you must not drink.

They will hold out a garment for you; so put it on.

They will hold out oil for you; so anoint yourself.

You must not neglect the instructions I have given you; Keep to the words that I have told you.”

The envoy of An arrived.

“Send to me Adapa, Who broke the South Wind’s wing.”

He made him take the way of heaven.

When he came up to heaven, When he approached the Gate of An, Dumuzi and Gizzida were standing in the Gate of An.

They saw Adapa and cried, “Heaven help him! Young man, on whose behalf do you look like this Adapa, on whose behalf do you wear mourning clothes? “Two gods have vanished from the country, and that is why I am wearing mourning clothes.”

“Who are the two gods who have vanished from the country” ” Dumuzi and Gizzida,” Adapa answered. They looked at each other and laughed a lot.

When Adapa drew near to the presence of King An, An saw him and shouted, “Come here, Adapa! Why did you break South Wind’s wind”

Adapa answered An, “My lord, I was catching fish in the middle of the sea, For the house of my lord Enki.

But he inflated the sea into a storm And south wind blew and sank me! I was forced to take up residence in the fishes’ home. In my fury, I cursed South Wind.”

Dumuzi and Gizzida responded from beside him, Spoke a word in his favor to An. His heart was appeased he grew quiet.

“Why did Enki disclose to wretched mankind The ways of heaven and earth, Give them a heavy heart It was he who did it! What can we do for him.

Fetch him the bread of eternal life and let him eat!”

They fetched him the bread of eternal life, but he would not eat.

They fetched him the water of eternal life, but he would not drink.

They fetched him a garment, and he put it on himself.

They fetched him oil, and he anointed himself.

An watched him and laughed at him.

“Come Adapa, why didn’t you eat? Why didn’t you drink?” Didn’t you want to be immortal? Alas for downtrodden people!”

The Dead Sea Scrolls, in the narrow sense of Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a collection of some 981 different texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 in eleven caves in the immediate vicinity of the ancient settlement at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank.

The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include the oldest known surviving copies of Biblical and extra-biblical documents and preserve evidence of great diversity in late Second Temple Judaism. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus. These manuscripts generally date between 150 BCE and 70 CE.

The scrolls are traditionally identified with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes, though some recent interpretations have challenged this association and argue that the scrolls were penned by priests, Zadokites, or other unknown Jewish groups.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are traditionally divided into three groups: "Biblical" manuscripts (copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 40% of the identified scrolls; "Apocryphal" or "Pseudepigraphical" manuscripts (known documents from the Second Temple Period like Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Sirach, non-canonical psalms, etc., that were not ultimately canonized in the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls; and "Sectarian" manuscripts (previously unknown documents that speak to the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism) like the Community Rule, War Scroll, Pesher.

In the early 19th Century a papyrus, dating from the end of the Middle Kingdom, was found in Egypt. It was taken to the Leiden Museum in Holland and interpreted by A.H. Gardiner in 1909. The complete papyrus can be found in the book Admonitions of an Egyptian from a heiratic papyrus in Leiden. The papyrus describes violent upheavals in Egypt, starvation, drought, escape of slaves (with the wealth of the Egyptians), and death throughout the land. The papyrus was written by an Egyptian named Ipuwer and appears to be an eyewitness account of the effects of the Exodus plagues from the perspective of an average Egyptian. Below are excerpts from the papyrus together with their parallels in the Book of Exodus.

THE PAPYRUS OF ANI,Royal Scribe of the Divine Offerings of all the Gods

commonly known as,

THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

Based on the Facsimile Reproduction of 1890,
With colour plates, and the text of the London 1895 edition.

Translated by Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge

[Note: This publication is in actuality a cannibalised version of two editions of this work, the one containing a complete reproduction of the plates of the Papyrus of Ani in colour, the other the text as it appears in this papyrus.
To make it more readable the description of the plates and vignettes have been omitted, as well as Budge’s interpolations of texts from various papyri other than Ani’s, and his over elaborate footnotes.]

One day, when King Khufu reigned over all the land, he said to his chancellor, who stood before him, “Go call me my sons and my councillors, that I may ask of them a thing.” And his sons and his councillors came and stood before him, and he said to them, “Know ye a man who can tell me tales of the deeds of the magicians?”

Khafra’s Tale

Then the royal son Khafra stood forth and said, “I will tell thy majesty a tale of the days of thy forefather Nebka, the blessed; of what came to pass when he went into the temple of Ptah of Ankhtaui.”

So begins one of many tales told to King Khufu by his sons, among many other tales of ‘folklore,’ as collected and translated by W.M. Flinder Petrie. These tales are beautifully illustrated by Tristan Ellis and were published in 1899 as two series, as the Egyptian tales, translated from the papyri. Petrie writes in his introduction: ‘It is strange that while literature occupies so much attention as at present, and while fiction is the largest division of our book-work, the oldest literature and fiction of the world should yet have remained unpresented to English readers. The tales of ancient Egypt have appeared collectively only in French, in the charming volume of Maspero’s “Contes Populaires”; while some have been translated into English at scattered times in volumes of the “Records of the Past.” But research moves forward; and translations that were excellent twenty years ago may now be largely improved, as we attain more insight into the language.’

From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old TestamentR.H. CharlesOxford: Clarendon Press, 1913

God Forgives Adam and Eve For Obeying Satan

The Life of Adam and Eve, also known, in its Greek version, as the Apocalypse of Moses, is a Jewish pseudepigraphical group of writings. It recounts the lives of Adam and Eve from after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden to their deaths. It provides more detail about the Fall of Man, including Eve’s version of the story. Satan explains that he rebelled when God commanded him to bow down to Adam. After Adam dies, he and all his descendants are promised a resurrection.

Descent of the Goddess Ishtar into the Lower World[From The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria, M. Jastrow, 1915]

Inanna, wearing a multi-horned crown stands with her head in the realm of the deities and their devotees. Her bird-clawed feet rest in the underworld, inhabited by strange and demonic creatures. Mesopotamian cylinder seal, 2000-1600 B.C.

The Sumerian poem, The Descent of Inanna (c. 1900-1600 BCE) chronicles the great goddess and Queen of Heaven Inanna’s journey from heaven, to earth, to the underworld to visit her recently widowed sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead.